“Your Grace,” shouted a soldier in a kettle hat, bursting in to the cottage. “A messenger!”

“Bring him here!”

The messenger, it could be seen—and smelled—hadn’t spared himself or his horse. A layer of caked-on mud covered him up to his waist and the stench of horse’s sweat was pungent even at a few paces from the man.

“Speak!”

“The Czechs approach…” panted the messenger, gasping for breath. “A great force… Burning everything… Osoblaha in ashes… Prudnik captured—”

“Whaaat?”

“Prudnik taken… A dreadful slaughter in the town… Czyżowice afire… Biała burning… Seized… The Hussites—”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Hussites… at Głogówek…”

“And where are the bishop’s men? Where is Jan of Ziębice, where Dukes Ruprecht and Ludwik? Where Sir Půta?”

“At Nysa. They order… They order Your Lordship the Duke to join them at all speed—”

“Join them?” Wołoszek burst out, clenching a mace stuck into his belt. “They retreat, leaving my towns and land to be destroyed, and I am to join them? My Głogówek imperilled, and I am to march to Nysa? The Bishop orders it? Konrad of Oleśnica, that thief, old soak and whoremonger, dares to order me? And why do you stare? I need fucking advice! Advice! What to do?”

“Attack!” roared the Knight Hospitaller. “Gott mit uns! ”

“Perhaps it’s false news?” The Silesian with the Nieczuja coat of arms blinked.

“March to Nysa and join forces with Bishop Konrad,” the Falkenhayn said firmly. “We’ll form a great host and defeat the heretics in a general battle. Avenge the towns that lie burned—”

The duke looked at him and ground his teeth. “Don’t advise me how to avenge, but rather how to save ourselves!”

“Parley?” stammered the Ogończyk. “Pay off the town?”

“I have no money.” Wołoszek ground his teeth again. “My Prudnik… Sweet Jesus! My Głogówek!”

“We must put our faith in God,” said the priest. “It will be as God decrees… Here is the Bible… I shall open it haphazardly and what I read will come to pass—”

“And on the strength of the curse,” recited Urban Horn, ahead of the clergyman, “all were devoted to be destroyed: men and women, young and old, with the edge of the sword—”

Bolko Wołoszek glared at him and Horn fell silent. But Reynevan immediately spoke up.

“And Joshua burned Ai,” he continued, “and made it a heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. Think it over, Bolko. Make a decision. Before it’s too late. It’s a revolution, Bolko,” he went on, seeing that the young Piast wasn’t in a hurry to interrupt him. “The world takes a new form, moves in a new direction. The chariot of history moves apace, no power is capable of stopping it. You can either climb aboard or be crushed by it. Choose.”